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herself on a wooden trellis. It creaked under her weight.  
    “ Seven months,” she said. A snowflake swirled past her face and she stared at it. “Seven months.”  
    “I couldn’t let you go!” said Helga. “You would have died…the Snow Queen would have killed you…you’ve been safe here, haven’t you? I’ve been protecting you!”
    Gerta barely heard her. She wracked her mind for memories of the last few months and all she had were fragments. She remembered working in the garden and strange dreams. Surely it had only been a week or two, surely not more than that…
    Seven months.
    Her birthday had come and gone, nearly half a year ago. Gerta choked on a laugh or a sob. She was suddenly closer to eighteen than sixteen.  
    They’ve had the harvest feast back home. The sweetheart’s dance. Kay would have asked me to dance, I’m sure of it, but he didn’t because the Snow Queen took him, and I went after him, and I only got this far…
    She was consumed with shame. Barely a day and a night down the road—fifteen miles from home? Twenty?—and she had been here seven months. Her grandmother undoubtedly thought she was dead.  
    Kay might be dead.  
    “It will be all right,” said Helga anxiously. “Come inside—I promise—I’m sorry—”
    “Stay away from me,” said Gerta again. She backed toward the garden gate. “I have to find Kay.”
    “You can’t leave now,” said Helga. “It’s coming on winter. She’ll be at the height of her power, if you even reach her, traveling in the snow. Come inside. You can go in spring…”
    Gerta stared at her. Did she really think that Gerta would go back in the house?  
    Does she think I’m stupid enough to trust her again?  
    “Are you mad?” she asked. “Do you think after all this—Are you mad?”  
    “I was keeping you safe!”  
    “I don’t need to be safe!” Gerta could feel herself getting mad, but surely it was all right to be mad now, surely this, of all things, one could be mad about. “You kept me here for seven months! Kay could be dead!”  
    “He isn’t dead,” said Helga, her shoulders sagging. “The plants haven’t seen him.”
    There were few plants left awake in the garden, but the long bare braids of the grapevines creaked when she spoke, a long, wordless sound, almost like assent.  
    “Good,” said Gerta. Her voice sounded thick and strangled in her ears. “Good. I haven’t failed yet.”  
    She turned and began to walk toward the garden gate.
    “Wait!” called Helga. “Wait!”  
    “Don’t try to stop me,” said Gerta. “Don’t.” She did not know what she would do if Helga did try—attack her, perhaps? She had never attacked anyone. Perhaps she would figure it out. If you hit a witch with your fists, did anything happen? Did magic stop you?
    “I won’t,” said Helga. “I swear it. But it’s starting to snow. It’s nearly winter. You’re not dressed for travel. If you wait just five minutes, I swear, not any longer, I’ll get you a cloak.”
    “How do I know it won’t be magicked?” said Gerta suspiciously. “I don’t want to put it on and be under your spell again.”
    “It doesn’t work like that,” said Helga wearily. “I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. I would if I could, to keep you here.”
    “How can I trust you, then?” asked Gerta.
    Helga rubbed her hand over her face. “I will swear by anything you like,” she said. “I will swear by the Blessed Virgin and the hosts of angels, by the soul of my mother, by the sacred pool where the witch-water is drawn. Give me five minutes, and let me give you a cloak to keep from freezing.”
    Gerta exhaled through her nose. She was cold, now that she was not working, cold, and her clothes did not fit as they had seven months ago. Her shirt gapped open between the buttons and had nearly worn through at the elbows.  
    In the seven months that she could barely remember, she had grown. And she had spent the nights dreaming of